2017 edition | Semaine pour l'Emploi des Personnes Handicapées | Du 14 au 20 novembre 2016

2017 edition

Created in 1997 at the initiative of LADAPT, the EDEW has become a major event in France, as well as in Belgium, Spain and Italy. Each year, in the 3rd week of November, a wide range of events are organised with the aim of changing perceptions about disability in companies and society.

A week of commitment

Given that the number of disabled job seekers has stayed the same since 2016, it is vital to continue our combat.

Each year, all over France, some 150 events are organised by LADAPT through its network of health bodies, medical-social services and volunteer committees. Along with these awareness-raising and recruitment events are initiatives organised by partner associations, companies, local authorities, etc.

In companies or in the public area, the time has come for an encounter between citizens, for debate and action!

Since 2015, employment and awareness-raising initiatives, as well as conferences, have been organised by or with our partners in Belgium, Spain and Italy.

2017: a “without limits” (#sanslimites) edition for employment

The 2017 edition is organised around the themes of supported employment and the employment of graduates with disabilities.

Supported employment at the heart of the debate

LADAPT has been supporting measures in favour of supported employment for a number of years. Myriam El Khomri, the then French Employment Minister, announced the official publication of a decree at the opening international conference of the EDEW 2016 at the House of UNESCO in Paris.

This measure had already been tested by the association in its 16 ESAT “Outside the Walls” employment-aid organisations, and LADAPT now plans to develop and apply it alongside our partners, in France and elsewhere in Europe, particularly through the DESC programme.

Employment for graduates: a subject for the future

By including in the 2017 programme access to employment for graduates, LADAPT wishes to highlight an important subject, one that is at the centre of the issues of employment and disability. By examining the issue from the point of view of the transitions and breaks in life (the passage from adolescence to adulthood, from being a student to being a new employee), qualifications, training and apprenticeship measures, LADAPT seeks to show the results at the centre of debates: social integration and inclusion in society.

A dynamic of exchanges

Since employment and disability are everyone's concern, LADAPT would like this year's event to convey a dynamic of exchanges and ideas alongside associations and partner bodies (the LADAPT – AGEFOS PME partnership, for example). This is why AGEFIPH, FIPHFP and LADAPT will be organising a joint press conference on 17 October in Paris, with the aim of pooling forces to publicise the EDEW.

A European question

Less than one in two disabled adults has a job in the European Union (source: Eurostat 2014, figure for 2011, in a population aged between 15 and 64, and declaring a disability). This figure (47.3%) is all the more alarming when compared with the employment rate of the 15-64 age-range without a disability, 66.9%. This lack of access to the world of work has effects on individuals’ standard of living, but also on social integration.

In the 28 countries in the EU, the rate of poverty-risk and social exclusion for non-disabled people aged 16 and over was 21.4% in 2013, compared with 19.9% for disabled people.

This year, the EDEW will remove inhibitions about disability!

People with disabilities are also real models of professional success! Their disability has driven them to develop themselves without limits (#sanslimites), and LADAPT is now going to tell their stories. See the communications campaign